A S H R I E L

The “Choose” whisper hasn’t even finished echoing when I drop to my knees beside her. Elle’s trembling so hard her breath breaks in pieces. The frostline on her leg pulses in a slow, steady rhythm that doesn’t belong to a human heart. I feel it anyway,  the Guardian Oath flaring like someone lit a match behind my ribs.

Luke is already holding her shoulders, his voice raw. “Elle, hey, look at me. Come on.” His hands hover close but not touching, like even he can’t tell what’s safe anymore. The cold coming off her isn’t normal, it’s old. Older than this building, older than the language we’re speaking. I reach for her arm, and the frost reacts instantly, tightening, brightening, warning me back like it recognizes me too well. Her eyes open the smallest bit, enough for her to find me.

“Ash..”

The bond jolts straight up my spine, burning and sharp, fear tangled with pain and something deeper I can’t name. Behind us, the mirrors pick up a low, hungry hum, and every instinct I have says we’re standing right in the middle of whatever’s waking up.

The sound drifts through the hall like a cold draft no one can avoid. First-years press themselves against the walls, some crying, some shaking, trying not to stare at Elle. No staff anywhere, they sense danger like this and vanish.

Someone yells from down the corridor, “Wrenwood caused this!” The accusation spreads instantly,  fear looking for somewhere to land.

Luke’s head snaps up. “Shut up!” His voice cracks. “Does she look like she wanted this?”

He sounds one breath away from ripping the whole hallway apart with his bare hands.

He shoots me a look, not asking for backup, but daring me to push him. I don’t rise to it, not now. The frost climbing her leg is spreading, stronger every second.

I lean closer. “Elle, we need to move before the mirrors change again.” Nothing. Her eyes stay fixed on a jagged shard like it’s whispering to her. Luke notices, and something in his expression buckles, barely there but real. The hum jumps, a sharp pop in my ears and every unbroken mirror flickers at the same time. A single breath, a beat, then the hallway erupts.

A blast of cold and glass collapsing outward in a storm of glittering ice. Frost slams into me, burning across my jaw, my arms, my throat. Students scream, someone hits the floor. Luke instantly throws himself over Elle, shielding her with his whole body. I hook an arm around both of them and drag us toward the wall as another mirror detonates overhead, spraying shards like frozen needles. My wings claw at the inside of my skin, begging to burst free, to cover them, but I force them down. Not here, not with all these eyes watching.

“Get her back!” Luke chokes out, pulling Elle closer, but the frost doesn’t care whose arms she’s in. It curls across the walls and floor in thin, lethal spirals, every one of them aimed at her. At the faint blue light pulsing beneath her skin. The mirrors didn’t just shatter; they reacted to her. Luke tries to haul her upright again, but the frostline on her leg throbs so sharply I feel it in my own teeth. Elle gasps and folds over, like the cold just slammed straight into her chest.

That’s it. I move.

“Don’t touch her like that..” Luke snaps, reaching for her again.

“She’s freezing from the inside,” I say, sharper than I mean to. “You’ll make it worse.” He hesitates, just for a breath and that’s all the opening I need. I slip my arms beneath her, lifting slow, careful, like she’s made of the same fragile glass covering the floor. She flinches when I pick her up, barely, but the bond snaps tight again, a sharp, hot twist of fear and warmth tangled with something she isn’t ready to name. Her head drops against my shoulder and I forget how to breathe.

Luke stands right beside us, fists clenched, jaw trembling with something far beyond fear. “Give her to me.”

“The cold isn’t reacting to your touch,” I say, shifting her weight as her breath stutters. “It’s responding to me.”

He knows I’m right, and he hates it. His eyes are wide with panic, but there’s something darker under it, something he doesn’t want to face, even in his own head. The mirrors start humming harder, like they can feel the shift between us, like they’re tuned to her, and it’s impossible not to feel like the whole corridor is waiting to see who she turns toward. Elle moves in my arms, her fingers twitching like she’s reaching for something just out of sight, or something she’s terrified to acknowledge.

“Put me down,” she whispers, her voice thin.

“Elle, wait..” Luke tries.

But she presses her hand to my chest, shaky but sure, and the sigil beneath her skin sparks through her sleeve,  a faint blue flicker trying to steady itself.

“I can stop it,” she murmurs, eyes half-open, drifting. “Just… get me to the floor.” The bond tightens in my chest. She believes that, and the Rift does too.

I lower her carefully, inch by inch. The frost crawling up her leg pulses again, syncing with her sigil like they’re speaking in some ancient language none of us were meant to understand.

Elle sets her hand on the tile,  unsteady, but sure. The second her palm meets the floor, thin frost spirals burst outward, sharp and delicate, racing straight toward the crack splitting the center of the hall.

Luke drops beside her, voice raw. “Elle, please..just hold on..” She doesn’t hear him, her eyes catch the same pale blue glow as her sigil. The frost spiral reaches the crack with a sharp, ringing snap. The whole floor trembles, temperature plunges and the humming doesn’t stop like every mirror is waiting.

Elle lets out a choked breath and sags forward, hand still pressed hard to the stone like she’s anchoring herself in place, but the crack… stops growing, because she stopped it. The hall goes still for a single, fragile moment, then the hissing begins.

The crack Elle just sealed jolts once, like something slams into it from below. Frost dust jumps across the tiles. Luke yanks her back on instinct, and I move in front of both of them. A thin fracture slices through the middle of her seal, first a smear of shadow that stretched wrong, like it forgot how to hold a body together. Then claws, not real ones, more like icicles curving and reforming into fingers. A face follows, half-built, barely holding shape, its eyes are slivers of broken mirrors glinting inside a fog-thin body.

A Hollowed, but nothing like the ones we’ve fought before. It drags itself out of the crack as far as it can, hissing a sound that should not belong to any creature.

“Elowen…”

Elle jerks like she’s been slapped, a sob catches in her throat. Luke pulls her closer, trying to shield her, I raise my blade, because whatever this thing is, it crawled out through her seal, and it’s here for her.

The creature stretches one ruined hand toward her, its fingers splinter and reform in tiny, twitching movements, unsure of what they’re supposed to be. Every flicker of its body makes the frost on her leg surge brighter.

“Don’t look at it,” Luke murmurs, voice cracking. “Elle..hey, look at me.” She tries, but the thing calls again, voice thin as breath on glass.

“Elowen…”

Her mother’s tone, gentle, familiar, Elle’s breath breaks, like someone hit her with a memory she isn’t ready to remember. The Guardian bond twists hot in my chest, not rage but recognition. That voice didn’t come from the creature alone, the Rift is staring through it and choosing a voice she can’t ignore.

Elle’s fingers knot tighter in Luke’s sleeve like she’s grounding herself, but her gaze drifts past him anyway, toward the creature, toward the name it keeps using. 

“Stop listening,” I say, stepping forward, blade low. “Elle, that’s not her.” Her chin trembles.

“But it sounds like her,” she whispers. And that, gods, that’s exactly the opening the Rift wants.

The creature lunges like it’s been waiting. I strike, catching it across the chest. Its body splits like smoke tearing over glass, but it doesn’t fall back. It clings to the crack, half inside, half out, held by something I can’t see.

Then every mirror starts humming again — all at once, perfectly in sync. Each one tilts by a fraction, just enough for their reflections to angle toward Elle.

All except one.

The tall mirror at the very end of the hall, the only one still whole. Its surface ripples like disturbed water, and begins to open.

Luke pulls Elle back another step. “I thought she shut them…”

“She sealed that one,” I told him. “Not the rest.”

The mirror throbs with a cold silver pulse, and a shiver crawls down my spine. The Rift isn’t trying to break through anymore. It’s already here, and it wants her eyes on it.

“Elle,” I say sharply, “don’t look..” But she’s already turning her head.

The mirror folds inward, slow and deep, like it’s inhaling. A distorted shape presses against the glass from the other side, stretching the surface until frost spiders out from where its hands meet it. Elle’s breath cuts off, mine does too. Then the voice slips through, gentle, warm and certain.

“Soon.”

Elle’s knees buckle, Luke catches her before she collapses. My grip on my blade falters because the Oath inside me is screaming, warning, furious, begging to tear free. The mirror shuts with a soft, final click. Frost spirals flare in a quick ring around Elle’s feet, and the heartbeat hum under her skin answers back.